Learnings

Outcomes

The overall aim of the project was to enable self-service connection offer functionality for high voltage connections customers between 300 kVA and 1 MVA and  budget estimates for connections between 300kVA and 2.5 MVA. These outcomes were successfully achieved. 
 
The tool provides three levels of functionality:  
Optioneering – Shows historic price ranges, on screen, for jobs in the area the customer selects, allowing optioneering during early stages of a project. 
Budget Estimates – Allows customers to receive a more accurate estimate by providing additional information about their job, enabling them to budget more accurately. 
Connection Offers – Enables customers to receive a formal, binding quotation if they provide even more detailed information above the requirements of a budget estimate.   
 
The project delivered an externally available website to UK Power Networks’ customers using an interface designed to allow customers to describe their site, substation and cable route on a map.  This required detailed discovery and documentation of the current manual processes and underlying data.  The processes and data were then codified and tested against manually generated connection offers, to ensure it remained true to the output of existing procedures.  The tool can be viewed here: https://ukpowernetworks.my.site.com/s/ (registration required for connection applications). 
 
The Auto Quote tool was integrated into the existing suite of UK Power Networks’ connections web applications, Smart Gateway. HV Auto Quote pricing functionality was integrated into existing enterprise systems.  
 
The testing phases compared quotes prepared by a Designer alongside those created for the same job by HV Auto Quote.  A threshold of  +/- 10% of the manually calculated connection offers was used to identify and resolve logic deltas, ensuring that the tool selected the same components as a designer .  This provides confidence that customers are receiving reliable and consistent quotes based on the information they have provided. 
 
Initial feedback from customers has been positive, comments have praised both the speed of submitting an application, and how much quicker a quote can be obtained.  The features of the tool, including the ability to optioneer have been highlights. 

Lessons Learnt

Integration with BAU 
The integration plans were phased towards the end of the project to ensure that the tool was developed enough to understand how it would merge with existing processes.  We found that it took longer than expected to understand the ‘as-is’ processes in order to develop the ‘to-be’ process to allow integration of HV Auto Quote tool. The key lesson learned is to begin understanding existing processes as early as possible in the project in order to facilitate transition to BAU more efficiently.  
 
We have also learnt that early identification of, and engagement with, business stakeholders that would interface with the tool is key to correctly integrating with BAU. It is also important to agree, as early as possible, who the product owner will be post-deployment, so that engagement can be initiated, expertise built, and input sought. This can help smooth the transition to BAU. 
 
Utilising internal expertise is key 
Much of the traffic management functionality was built with the input of a traffic management contractor we use as part of the existing BAU processes.  Whilst they engaged helpfully and openly, there was an inherent delay in sending queries and receiving responses (no fault on the part of the contractor). Towards the end of the project, an in-house expert was identified, and this proved to be invaluable, greatly increasing speed of resolution for logic issues and other traffic management queries. The lesson learned is that where possible, we should use internal expertise when available. 
 
Stakeholder Engagement 
During the discovery phase: 
The key internal stakeholders engaged during this phase were in the following teams: Connections, Asset Management, Network Operations and Innovation. 
The key external stakeholders engaged during this phase were the external customers seeking connections. 
 
During the delivery phase: 
The key stakeholders internally were in the following teams: Connections, Asset Management, Network Operations, Innovation, Integration Support, Procurement, Legal and Customer Services. 
The key external stakeholders engaged were a select list of external customers seeking HV connections. 
 
The learning aims during external engagement were bilateral:  We looked to bring learnings from customers into the organisation to understand what was important to them and how best to build the tool.  We also wanted them to learn about the proposed capabilities of the tool so that they could understand, from an early stage, how it could benefit them and enable them to receive an improved service. 
 
For internal engagement, we needed to learn from the key stakeholders how the processes currently worked, so that we could identify any amendments that would be needed to accommodate the introduction of HV Auto Quote.  Once the tool had been created and the processes defined in partnership with the various departments, the information was disseminated both through documentation and in-person training sessions. 
 
Demonstration of the tool was used through the lifecycle of the project in order to gain feedback from stakeholders to adapt and develop the tool accordingly.